NATIONAL MINORITIES. – All the uncertainties that beset juridical speculation regarding the concept of the nation are reflected in the concept of national minorities. Its principal nucleus is expressed by the adjective “national,” since the noun merely indicates the extrinsic relation in which the group stands with respect to the political organism within whose bosom it carries on its life. Assuming, with regard to the essence of the nation, what is set forth in the relevant entry, a national minority may be defined as a natural social formation, held together by an internal bond of a spiritual order, composed of individuals homogeneous in origin and culture, who live in a relation of subjection to a political organism of different origin and culture, from whose majority they are distinguished.
This definition adheres to a unitary conception of the national minority, regarded as a social entity endowed with its own being and its own natural end, distinct from that of the State in general. Opinions on this point are not unanimous. Contemporary publicists and international law remain firmly anchored to the atomistic concept, which has exerted its influence in the creation of the minority regime through the treaties imposed upon States that were constituted at the end of the First World War or saw their sovereignty extended over other territories. As appears from the articles of the Polish treaty, substantially repeated in all the others, the object of the stipulation is not the ethnic group as such, but the inhabitants of the State of different origin, language, and religion. This attitude was adopted for reasons that are clearly ideological. The principle that the architects of the European settlement wished to apply in solving the minority problem was that of self-determination or free disposition of peoples, upheld by Wilson, of liberal persuasion and based upon an atomistic conception of society.
Catholic speculation has, in contrast, been moving in a different direction for some time. The opinion of Cathrein, who, in order to combat the principle of nationality more effectively, denied the nation any real unity and regarded it merely as a logical unity, and the intermediate position of Meyer, who, while admitting that rights cannot be attributed to nationality unless it is considered as a collective entity, continued to conceive of them as rights of individuals, thereby losing sight of the group, must now be regarded as surpassed. The unitary conception has gained ground among modern writers. Among them, in the development of the principle, Délos remains somewhat uncertain; his starting point is undoubtedly a unitary concept of the national minority, which he regards as a natural social entity with its own end, while his conclusion diverges from this, since he explicitly excludes moral personality, to which rights might or should be attributed.
A simple reflection will suffice to demonstrate the necessity of abandoning the atomistic conception. The existence of a unitary social entity requires three elements: a plurality of rational subjects, a common end toward which the conscious collaboration of the members is directed, and an internal principle that binds the parts together, giving rise to a group constituted as a moral subject in its own right. Now these three elements, necessary and sufficient for the existence of a unitary social aggregate, are present in the national minority. It is, in fact, constituted by a sum of individuals marked by certain homogeneous particular characteristics, who tend to the preservation and development of their cultural peculiarities and, precisely for this reason, feel themselves united by a common destiny. The national minority must therefore be conceived as a unitary entity, with its own positive social being, its own natural end, and its own moral personality.
To this conclusion, recently reached by Catholic writers, is linked the still-debated question of whether the national minority, beyond moral personality, also requires recognition of juridical personality as a social entity in its own right. In the doctrine dominated by the principles of the positivist school, the solution is decidedly negative. Proceeding from the premise that the source of personality is positive juridical order, and finding that in no treaty or norm has juridical personality been conferred upon national minorities, it concludes logically in favor of their exclusion from juridical personality. It must be acknowledged that, if the problem is framed in terms of positive law, its solution cannot be other than that accepted by common doctrine; the picture changes, however, if the problem is viewed in terms of natural law.
Some difficulty in recognizing the juridical personality of the national minority arises from the dispersed state of certain ethnic groups among populations of different nationality, since in this case, lacking territorial unity, the unitary concept can be applied less perfectly. And yet, if a spiritual bond exists among the members thus dispersed, one cannot exclude the existence of a certain unity that permits overcoming the difficulty. Other difficulties arise from the exigency of internal unity for the life of the State and from the modern concept of sovereignty, conceived as absolute and discretionary power. Some of these difficulties are undoubtedly weighty, but they do not suffice to impair the natural juridical personality of the national minority. If it possesses its own social being, resulting from the convergence of wills toward the attainment of a common end in favor of the human person, it is configured as a well-defined subject and, as such, possesses, together with moral personality, juridical personality as well, since subjective rights always and necessarily accompany the person. A person without rights is a contradiction in terms. Where a physical or moral person exists, there also exists a bearer of rights, independently of any positive juridical order.
Having established the concept of the national minority, it is now necessary to determine the rights that pertain to II. In this regard, a distinction has been made between human rights and rights more particularly proper to nationality, termed cultural rights. The distinction may be accepted and maintained. If one examines, in fact, the series of rights now recognized by the juridical conscience of peoples, it will be easy to see how they may be divided into two groups: rights common to all men, irrespective of their belonging to a given national minority, such as the security of life, civil and political equality, personal and religious liberty; and rights specific to nationality, such as those concerning the preservation and development of one’s own culture. This latter group deserves particular mention.
A first right concerns the existence and integrity of the minority group, generally not considered because of the already recalled atomistic conception of the national minority, but fundamental as juridical protection of a good to whose preservation every social aggregate tends above all. Connected with the original faculty of being is that which refers to the soil, where the national minority has taken stable residence, from which it draws the means of subsistence and with which it remains united almost organically. The national minority also has a fatherland, loved and venerated with ardent feeling, in which it has the right to reside undisturbed; hence the injustice of the barbarous measure of forced population exchanges, adopted in some cases to resolve the minority problem.
A separate category of rights, more properly termed cultural rights, concerns the specific prerogatives that mark out the national group. Among these are the right to the use of one’s own language and to its teaching in schools, the maintenance of one’s traditions and customs, and the means necessary to preserve, develop, and transmit them. This group of rights derives immediately to the national minority from its very existence as a natural social aggregate, whose solidarity depends on the factors of nationality that specify and contract the associative impulse of universal tendency, and from the end to which its collective action is directed, namely the perfection of the human person.
From the foregoing, the duties of the State toward the national minority and of the minority toward the State can be readily deduced. The State has the duty to ensure the existence of the ethnic group as such, its peaceful residence in its native soil, the free use of its language, and all other cultural rights proper to the nationality. It is not thereby precluded from pursuing a prudent and circumspect policy of assimilation, provided that it is carried out with respect for the rights just mentioned. The national minority, for its part, as a component of the entire political organization, remains subject to all the duties deriving from legal justice. It is obliged to cooperate for the common good, to show complete loyalty and submission to legitimate authority, to obey the laws that the same authority enacts for the maintenance of social order and the public weal. If political power operates within the bounds of justice, the minority in no way may lawfully plot against the State, foment disorder, or rise in rebellion.
Only a passing mention need be made of the international protection of the rights of national minorities and of the Church’s attitude toward them. The development of international safeguards has been slow. A first uncertain dawn appeared with the capitulations obtained by Francis I in 1535 from the Sublime Porte. A still hesitant step was taken with the Peace of Westphalia and the treaties concluded thereafter, in which the principle *cuius regio eius religio* was replaced by a certain measure of tolerance in favor of subjects professing a religion different from that of the sovereign. The so-called interventions of humanity against the tyranny exercised by the Ottoman Empire, particularly over the Balkan populations, in Lebanon, and in Syria—interventions supported after the Congress of Paris in 1856 by the so-called European concert—reaffirmed a principle that was gradually becoming ever more evident to the conscience of peoples. With the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, a genuine protective code for national minorities entered into contractual international law. In defense of these minorities, clauses were imposed on Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania—liberated from Turkish yoke—and on Turkey itself, by which all citizens, without distinction of race or religion, were guaranteed equality in civil and political rights, admission to public offices, and the exercise of professions; freedom and the external practice of worship, the hierarchical organization of religious communities, and their relations with spiritual leaders.
A more effective organization of the international protection of national minorities was achieved after the First World War through the creation of an appropriate system of guardianship. As has been noted, the victorious powers imposed on Poland and several other States protective clauses that included the following rights: to life and liberty; to the free profession of religion and the public and private exercise of worship, with the attendant faculty to establish, maintain, and supervise charitable, religious, and cultural institutions; to full political and civil equality; to the use of the national language and, in some cases, to import primary education in that language. This contractual protection assumed the form of genuine international guardianship of national minorities, inasmuch as the clauses concerning them were placed under the aegis of the League of Nations, which reserved the right of supervision and intervention to ensure their observance, forbidding the State to make any unilateral modification. The system of guardianship thus constituted was not without defects that rendered it in practice inoperative, yet it marked an important stage in the progress of juridical institutions in favor of the human person. After the Second World War it was not revived. International law now tends toward a collective convention on the protection of human rights, of which a declaration was issued within the United Nations (v. HUMAN RIGHTS).
The attitude of the Church toward differences of race, language, customs, and culture has always been one of understanding, appreciation, and, where possible, protection. “The Church,” writes Pius XII in *Summi pontificatus*, “the most faithful guardian of divine educative wisdom, cannot and does not think of impairing or undervaluing the particular characteristics that each people, with jealous and understandable pride, guards and regards as a precious heritage.” Without entering into the history of its civilizing mission, conducted with the utmost respect for the customs of peoples insofar as these were compatible with the principles of revealed faith, it will suffice to recall how, in the concordats concluded in the most recent period, the Church has taken care to protect the use of the language of the various nationalities along with freedom of worship. The Concordat with Poland of 1915, that with Lithuania of 1927, and that with Germany of 1933 bear witness to this vigilant protection on the part of the Church.
In defense of the rights of national minorities, moreover, the recent popes have raised their voices. Benedict XV, in 1917, advised the belligerent powers to take into consideration, as far as possible, the just aspirations of peoples, so as to coordinate particular interests with the universal good of human society. On the occasion of the Second World War, Pius XII did not fail to point out the necessity of attending to the true needs of nations and of providing for the respect and protection of national minorities, for the establishment of an order founded on morality and justice. In his Christmas allocution of December 1939, he declared: “In particular, a point that should attract attention, if a better ordering of Europe is to be achieved, concerns the true needs and just demands of nations as well as of national minorities.” More explicitly and at greater length in the Christmas message of 1941, where he condemned the oppression of minority groups, declaring that “in the realm of a new order founded on moral principles, there is no place for the open or insidious oppression of the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of national minorities, for the hindering and constriction of their economic capacities, or for the limitation and abolition of their natural fertility.”